* Astronomy

Mount Etna, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, erupted in late October 2005. In mid-November, it was still emitting a sporadic plume of ash.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard the Terra satellite captured this image of Etna on November 12, 2005. In this image, a faint plume of ash wisps away from the volcano’s summit toward the northwest.


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The satellite also captured the ash plume’s shadow, appearing just north of the plume itself. Running diagonally down the left side of the image is a seam, where two different satellite images were stitched together to make this picture.